General thoughts, random rants, and questionable tips & advice from someone who is too young to be a curmudgeon, yet is one.

Quote of the Week

"One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils."

- Woodrow Wilson

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Thank You Technology for Taking Us Backwards, or Do We Just Don't Like Talking to Eachother?

The way man communicates hasn't really changed much since the dawn of civilization. Pretty much the two predominant ways are vocally or by written text. About the only thing that has changed is there are more methods to rely the communications.

The original and still the best way, is talking to someone face to face. Then came along the idea and practice of writing things down. People typically prefer to talk face to face, especially in business where important meetings are still held face to face even with all of the modern technologies. Beside showing sincerity and commitment by making the effort to meet; it allow helps eliminate miscommunications since tone and body language can easily be seen.

This first improvement is still the most significant of all time. It allows people to communicate over distance and time. It also allows documentation, which is a big plus for sharing and retaining information.

Not much has really changed with how we communicate today, besides the technologies used to do it. We still talk and write things down. We meet each other face to face and send written letters much the same ways since antiquity. Just our modes of transportation and mail delivery have improved. But there has been improvements in specific methods of delivering the message.

I think the biggest leap forward came with the invention of the telegraph in 1832. Now for the first time people can converse over long distances almost instantly. Instead of traveling or sending a message by mail, taking days maybe weeks to reach the destination; a person can write a short note, send it electronically to a far off place where someone reads the short note in text.

From the dawn of man to 1832, not a whole lot happened. But from 1832 to 2014 an incredible amount has. The telegraph, telephone, wireless radio communication, television, fax machines, cordless phones, the internet, email, cellular phones, communication satellites, web sharing, voice over internet, video conferencing, and I'm sure several other technical wonders I am forgetting.

Now in 2014 almost everyone I know has a tiny smartphone that fits in the palm of there hand. With it, the can talk to almost anyone in the world, the can send and receive photos and videos, and they can access the limitless information on the internet.

And how do most people use this almost magically technical wonder to communicate the most? With a short text message. Basically the same way we used the telegraph starting in the 1830's. Full of abbreviations, acronyms and bad sentence structure to shorten up the message. Which has been destroying our language by the way. Thank you, Technology for taking us backwards over 180 years! May b mor cause ppl can't type real wrds now.

Or do we just don't like talking to eachother? I guess that could be it too.

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